Spectacular. Simply stunning. I particularly love the neck and the woods on the back of the guitar, it makes for a really striking contrast. I usually don't care much for the appearance of Coco Bolo, but that top is just gorgeous. This is making the wait for my recently purchased skylark all the harder.

I was about to say something rude about the gold knobs... then I looked at the first picture, where they appear black, and one in the middle where they're gold - and then finally, I see they're gold with black tops.

Maybe... so why in the third picture to they appear to be entirely gold? And why does the carpet keep changing color?

Thanks for the good wishes and compliments on the guitar. The Alembic team did an amazing job and Susan deserves a very special thank you for her inspiration. It was a pleasure to collaborate with her on the custom features of the Skylark.

This is my first Alembic and I must comment on the craftsmanship. I'm sure all of you are already aware of the precision and beauty with which these instruments are built. I was unprepared for the remarkable level of artistry in my guitar. Every inch of the guitar has clearly received a high degree of attention - the workmanship is impeccable. There are precious few things being produced today that achieve such extraordinary quality. This Skylark with it's modest custom features fairly drips with beauty.

An amusing side note: Upon showing my guitar to a few friends, unfamiliar with Alembic, I got this comment - "I can't play guitar or bass, but I'd get one just to hang on my wall." Another friend, a musician (horn player and big Marcus Miller fan), was quickly searching web sites for bass instruction, and music stores for their Alembic inventory. He made the comment that the best advertisement for Alembic is seeing one of their instruments close up.

I'd like to add a few more photos to this thread. I didn't get a good shot of the inlay the first time around, and there are a few details of the Skylark of which I was unaware prior to the arrival of this guitar.

P.S. Bob: I believe the knobs are all brass (no black) - I don't think I would have liked plastic knobs on this baby. Also, my digital Nikon is a few years old and I did a little color correction on that shot with the bluish carpet - it was really overexposed and I was too lazy to mask the carpet when I corrected the guitar color - or perhaps my camera has been getting into some of Paul's funny tasting herb. =)

That is a really great looking guitar. I really like the newer Skylarks and the way they break up the tops with the extra laminate. The first one I saw was the zebrawood one in the store and now this one as well. I think the coco bolo looks great on the Skylark. Very nice choice and a fine looking guitar for sure.

That wood looks as stunning as anything I've ever seen. Whenever I'm able to custom order my dream Orion, it will be in this flaming combination of woods. I already had this in mind before I saw these pictures, but I certainly wasn't wrong...

I read your post in the thread about how to order an Alembic where you picked your cocobolo top out of the wood bank. Can you direct me the the approriate thread in the woodbank section? I'd love to see the "before" that morphed into your incredible "after"

I was looking for something in the orange/red part of the spectrum. That piece of coco bolo truly lives up to it's Wood Bank title. I had no idea how much contrast would appear, but I could feel the glow even in the Wood Bank photo. The variety of color in this top is amazing! There are variations of orange, reds, browns, and black. The whole thing is framed and tied together with a lovely lam of vermilion which coaxes even more orange out of the top. It's incredibly difficult to visually articulate the appearance with photographs, especially digital snapshots taken in my home without controlled lighting, and then optimized for internet viewing (i.e. lossy jpg format).

By the way - love the quotes from Uncle John's Band and Mountains of the Moon. =D

How in the hell did they do the continuous wood backplates? I thought they had to do a back laminate in order to do that? This is a solid mahogany back/body isn't it? They only time I've seen them do it without a back lam is that Special O' Month that was from one piece of Zebrawood, but they sliced it and made lams out of that one. What gives? Inquiring minds wanna know!

Kevin - Yes, my guitar has a mahogany body - no back lam. I wanted wood backplates that matched the body so I paid for that as an upgrade. My invoice says: "Mahogany nearest neighbor backplate." . . . Looks like they found a really near neighbor.

This Skylark sounds amazing. The sound is incredibly clean, and a tremendous variety of tone can be achieved from it. It is by far the most versatile guitar I've ever played. I've had the guitar for just about a month and I'm still discovering subtle tonal variations it's capable of. Even small adjustments of the filters can have noticeably audible effects. As you are probably aware, Skylarks can sound very bright, and mine is no exception, but it also can sound very warm, fuzzy, punchy, smooth, moe, curly, doc, sneezy, and dopey (sorry - I got carried away). My point is that, although I've never played a maple top Skylark, the coco bolo and vermilion top is capable of shimmering highs, full warm lows, and a very complex variation of tone in between. Alembic electronics have a reputation for clean versatile tone and the Skylark package lives up to it.

Beyond that the guitar is most responsive - the neck is very comfortable, the action is great and it sustains for ever. Iíve already commented on the craftsmanship of this guitar above but itís worth repeating that very few things made today are designed and built with such excellence in quality and attention to detail as an Alembic.

If you browse around through the topics here you will find comments from Hollis, another guitar-playing member, regarding the way his Skylark has informed his playing, how he has actually ďlearnedĒ from his guitar. I am surprised and delighted to say that I have the same experience. I only wish I had an Alembic earlier.

Congrats on your forthcoming order. You wonít regret it.

Tom

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